One of the biggest challenges with the new way DoTs (and HoTs) work in Cataclysm is knowing when you’re at enough Haste to make it worth your while to add more and get extra ticks on your spells, or when it would be better to switch over to a different stat like Mastery or Crit. This is further complicated because each spell has a different breakpoint or plateau due to their duration and intervals, so you can’t just say there’s a set Haste level for your class – it all depends on what you’re casting.

The formula for computing the number of ticks is relatively straightforward:

Round ( Base Spell Duration / ( Base Tick Time / (1 + Haste %)))

In other words, take the base tick time, modify it with haste, then see if the base duration would round it up to an additional tick.

Straightforward doesn’t always mean simple, though. In order to make decisions about how much Haste to stack, you’ll want to look at all of your DoTs and see where the sweet spot is for you.

Recognizing that some people are more comfortable with math than others, I went ahead and built a spreadsheet so that you could see how your spells would work with Haste. Cyn’s DoT/HoT Haste Calculator:

Lets you configure four spells with different durations and tick times.

Gives you a place to enter your current Haste percentage and see its effect on each spell and the GCD.

Lets you see how much Haste rating you will need to reach specific Haste percentages at level 70, 80, and 85.

Provides a table of Haste values from 0%-50% with related values for each.

To use it, download the file and open it with the spreadsheet program of your choice. If you don’t have one, I recommend the free OpenOffice suite. Change the DoT1-4 values to match the values for the spells of your choice, then put your current Haste value in the big yellow cell that says YOUR HASTE % HERE. The values should fill in.

Here’s what it looks like, if you don’t want to fire up Excel or OO:

I debated putting in a duration calculator, but it cluttered things up too much for a 1.0 release. I’d appreciate any feedback you might have on this spreadsheet. Corrections, comments, whatever, let me know!

(And for the Warlocks out there, I’m sure you see that the default DoTs are: Immo/UA, Corruption, BoD, BoA. Just as it should be.)

Update 12/31/10: I’ve updated the spreadsheet to version 1.1 to include Hamlet’s breakpoint math, below. (Thanks, Hamlet!) There is a new section that shows you where the first 4 ticks are added to your DoT/HoT, as well as the next Haste value you will need to reach to gain an additional tick.

Update 1/2/11: Updated to version 1.11. Fixed a bug in the table, thanks Hylix!

It seems what you really want to do is compute the breakpoints (in terms of reting) and simply list those–there’s no need to make a long list of values for small haste increments.

For example, for “DoT 2” in your example:
This first thing to notice is that the location of haste breakpoints depends only on the default number of ticks. This is a 6-tick DoT, so breakpoints will appear at haste values equal to (2k+1)/12 for integers k. i.e. at haste values equal to 1/12 = 8.33%, 3/12 = 25%, 5/12 = 41.67%, etc. Since these aren’t necessarily integral values of haste %, the breakpoints themselves aren’t visible in your sheet–even though that’s really the key piece of information.

Once you get the percentages from the above expression, computing the ratings should be easy enough–you probably do it already (just divide out raid buffs and multiply by the haste rating conversion). I think this would present the desired information in more focused way.

Those are great points, and thanks for going into more detail on your EJ post!

I’d originally decided to put the table in to present a view of the information so that people can see how far they are from the breakpoints of the other DoTs and make a judgement call on if Haste was going to do anything more for them. I like how there’s that loooong stretch between 13%-20% where nothing changes in the table – it makes it very obvious how your benefits drop off to simple DPS scaling during that range.

I will definitely integrate your breakpoint math in the next version. Thanks!

Not going to lie; I get a little depressed when I hear people start talking about using spreadsheets, databases, simulators, and statistical sampling software for their WoW game. I come to WoW to “escape” from my complicated life. To hear that in order to more fully enjoy my escape from complication, that I have to engage in more complexity to reduce the complexity of the complxity in my escape produces complex emotions within me, which leads to my suffering from a complex.

And, yes, I do have a warlock: and a mage main, and a paladin, and a new priest, and a family of DKs. Have I gone through all of this complexity to figure out their optimum uncomplicated rotations? That is a complicated question….

You’re not alone in this attitude. It’s a testament to the designers how this game can appeal to so many different viewpoints and approaches; the game really is what you make of it.

Some people, like Hamlet above, really enjoy the mathematical part of this game, of trying to figure out how it works, and optimal routines within the rules of the game. It’s fun for them, which is great! This is a game. It’s here for fun.

Others, like yourself, find statistical modeling the antithesis of fun – it’s the playing of the game that is fun, not examining the underlying structures. You find your fun in other parts of the game, which is also great! This is about having fun.

I find it enjoyable to figure out how this game works and try to teach it to other people. That’s what this weblog is, when I get right down to it – me trying to pass on things I figured out about this game to other players. There are times that this weblog is more fun than the game it’s about!

I understand what it’s like to read things about this game and get depressed, to feel like I have to engage in an activity that I don’t really find fun in order to “be good” at this game. I’ve never really wanted to do Arena or raiding hardmodes. I’m pretty content to see a dungeon a few times and then move on – spending a year in ICC was brutally unfun for me. I did it for my guild, and they made it as much fun as it could be.

But I know those activities are a lot of fun for other people, so it helps me to move on when I read something that gets me down. As long as people are having fun, I’m okay with it. It’s when they’re not having fun that I stay depressed. 😦

It is not so much that I do not find math and statistics fun: in a real way I do (it has been a large part of my work after all.) It is just that I am not used to doing statistical analysis to play a game. Plus I admit I have never been a dungeon person, so “optimals” have tended to mean: what do I need to throw at this mob so I do not die…again.

That said, a big part of why I have never been a dungeon person has to do with the fact I have never been in a functional guild. They tended to dissolve around me while I was leveling. I am now in a great new guild and would like to try and enjoy this strange new activity, so I am probably going to need a few tools like your spreadsheet, which I have downloaded and will be trying out on my lvl 51 Gnome Warlock and 21 Worgen Priestess, to get a feel for the different level stats.

That’s good, and I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth about your perspective.

I found dungeons to be strange, exciting, and kinda stressful when I first started running them. (Wow, was that post really from a year and a half ago?) I was very self-conscious of showing up in my PvP gear, I didn’t know what to do, I was worried about pulling aggro…

A good guild can definitely help ease you into it. I’m glad you’ve found one!

The internet is a great place for advice. I’ve found that the combination of Twitter and Google generally get me what I’m looking for on classes I don’t know a lot about. It’s always helpful when I pick up a class I haven’t played in a few months to have folks remind me of the basics. (The DK community on Twitter are all saints for putting up with me.)

Excelent sheet but I found 1 little bug. In row 58 you start with A59 and this is supposed to be A58 this goes on till the last value. This will result in a bug which you are able to notice pretty quick if you look at the last row cause there it asks for A73 which is zero. Anyway its easy to fix and I found it in version 1.1. Great work keep it up! 😀

It seems like this sheet doesn’t take Dark Intent into
account, correct? As a Warlock we should be able to guarantee that
there’s a 3% multiplier on top of our haste % in order to really
calculate the breakpoints, correct?